Chillingham Cattle - Black ears or Red? - Local 'tame' cows turned out to pasture with the wild Chillingham herd!

These excerpts are from a quite respectable 1792 pubication:

A General History of Quadrapeds,c. 1792, by Thomas Bewick & Ralph Beilby

Can't tell you how many times I've read the Chillingham owners had the black eared ones killed, the wholly black ones, and anything not perfectly white.....how sad...how backward even for those times. A lack of copper in your pasture's soil will cause your otherwise black-eared cattle to have red ears (the muzzle, or nose, will generally remain black in a copper deficiency). Did they slaughter the black-eared ones when by chance the soils were healthy every few years?  Apparently so.........

"The white wild cattle of Chillingham Park have a pile much resembling the Tees Water, but they have uniformly black muzzles, hoofs, and the tips of the horns... the horn denoting the kindred breed above all other circumstances, and on that account the wild cattle must be related to the native cattle of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, the height, colour and direction of the homs being similar. This declaration in Nature, the similarity of horn,..." Source: The Country Gentleman's Magazine,1876 



Above we find reference to the preference for the black-eared ones, as well as a clear indication of the Size of the cattle.  Those not at Chillingham were "much larger" weighing about "50 stone" which equates to about 700 lbs, easily 40% of the average weight of a domestic cow in the USA today. 

As a side note, there are many early references to the Chillingham cattle having black points. Those pocket-book politics I've referred to before came to a resounding head in modern times, as well as in the late 19th and early 20th century, to try to present the Chillingham herd as something distinct, purely preserved, and genetically linked back to the ancient urus/aurochs of Britain -- even in the 19th century many writers found this notion absurd.
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The reality is that the Chillingham herd itself has at least once been down to one female in calf who produced a bull sometime between 1776 and 1836, based on various writers descriptions of the existing stock.

"The stock at Chillingham was once reduced to a cow in calf. The produce fortunately proved a bull." (Jardine, 1836).

It is inconceivable that this bull was not crossed with locally desirable cattle. As well there are ample sources which tell us that English Longhorn, Welsh Black/White, and Highland were used to perpetuate the breed type.  It is truly absurd that in the present day the horned Chillingham cattle are perceived as being more closely kin to the ancient auroch that roamed the British Isles than any other bovine beast -- this notion has been greeted with educated skepticism from it's first pronouncement from the Lord of Chillingham in the early 19th century.

From Bewick in 1792 we also learn:

I'm not sure how these wild Chillingham cattle were penned and the tames ones subsequently sorted off. Based on the following excerpt from Youatt's, The Complete Grazier, 1893, the Chillingham calves apparently couldn't even be weaned from their dams.

1776 Reference to the white cow in Lincolnshire, Surry, and Suffolk

"In some parts of Surry there is a white sort of cows that it is reported produce the richest milk and their fleh more readily receives salt than any of the other."


Quotes from Chapters 1& 2, The Complete Grazier, 1767
"The white breed of kine(cow) were some time ago very frequent in Lincolnshire from whence a gentleman brought them into Surry as a curiosity. They are of different make and much larger than the black cattle, give more milk at a meal, but grow dry the soonest of the three."

Hamilton (Cadzow) Park Cattle of the early 1800's - Immortalized by Sir Walter Scott -

"The ancient parish, quite or nearly identical with Hamilton parish, was variously called Cadyhou, Cadyou, and Cadzow; and it changed that name to Hamilton in 1445."

The Castle stands in the gorge of Avon Water, 1½ mile SSE of Hamilton; crowns a rock, nearly 200 feet high, on the left side of the stream; dates from the times of a semi-fabulous prince of the name Caw, prior to the era of the Scoto-Saxon monarchy; was a royal residence in the times of Alexander II. and Alexander III.; passed, in the time of Robert Bruce, to the family of Hamilton; appears to have been often repaired or rebuilt; consists now of little more than a keep, covered with ivy and embosomed with wood; and looks, amid the grandeur and romance of the gorge around it, like ` sentinel of fairy-land. '

The ancient forest surrounds the castle; contains, on the opposite side of the Avon, the summer-house of Chatelherault, built in 1730; is now called Hamilton Wood; comprises about 1500 acres; is browsed by a noble herd of fallow deer; and is the scene of Sir Walter Scott's famous ballad of Cadzow Castle. Of it Mr Rt. Hutchison writes, . . . surrounded by a stone wall 6 feet high and about 3 miles in extent, which was most probably the boundary in feudal times. . .

The wild cattle are pure white save for black muzzles, hoofs, and tips of the horns; show their wildness chiefly in their fear of man; have only one recognised leader among the bulls; and in Nov. 1880 numbered 16 bulls and 40 cows. Regarded commonly as survivors of our native wild cattle, they are held by Dr Jn. Alex. Smith, in his Notes on the Ancient Cattle of Scotland (1873), to be rather 'an ancient fancy breed of domesticated cattle preserved for their beauty in the parks of the nobility.'

Drawing of the Hamilton white cattle in 1835:



Sir Walter Scott spent the Christmas of 1801 at Hamilton Palace. Must read Link to Annals of the Andersonian Naturalist's Society commenting on the visit of Sir Walter Scot to the Hamilton herd in Scotland.





BALLAD of CADZOW (Hamilton) CASTLE Excerpt:

Through the huge oaks of Evandale,
Whose limbs a thousand years have worn,
What sullen roar comes down the gale,
And drowns the hunter's pealing horn.

Mightiest of all the beasts of chase
That roam in woody Caledonia,
Crashing the forest in his race,
The Mountain Bull comes thundering on..

Fierce on the hunter's quivered band,
He rolls his eyes of swarthy glow.
Spurns with black hoof and horn the land,
And tosses high his mane of snow.

And well the chieftain's lance has flown,
Struggling in blood the savage lies,
His roar is sunk in hollow groan.

Tis noon against the knotted oak,
The hunters rest the idle spear.
Curls through the trees the slender smoke
Where yeomen light the woodland.

Proudly the chieftain marked his clan,
On greenwood lay all careless thrown,
Yet missed his eye the boldest man,
That bore the name of Hamilton

"It is highly probable that Sir Walter Scott's ballad awakened the interest of the ducal family, and that a successful attempt to form or collect a herd was made, either from a few survivors of the former one that had been kept somewhere else, or from a distinct one. Under any circumstances a small herd of white cattle, numbering about a score, were browsing in Cadzow by 1809, and the cows being horned and the bulls humble (means POLLED) would seem to indicate a herd in process of formation from different sources. Later the whole herd became humble. For twenty-five years past, at least, they have been all horned."

Source

An ancient verse that speaks to the hunting and slaughter of the revered white cattle of the British Isles.....

Poem from "Flowers of Song from Many Lands . . ." by By Frederic Rowland Marvin

Global Warming - Cow Belches and Farts - Paul McCartney?

Hot news yesterday on CNN was an interview with Paul McCartney. He's asking folks to go one day a year without eating meat. Why? To help combat global warming. Those cow farts and belches just produce too much methane gas. How about he asks folks to give up pinto beans for several days a year, surely the gas humans produce impact global warming as well -- I'll have to check on that.

The newscaster went on to quote stats that 18% of the methane gas produced is from livestock, and a mere 13% was the result of all the automobiles running the highways. It seems a cattle rancher driving a hybrid is way more destructive than a suburbanite driving a gas guzzling suburban. Just about every time the news media covers the methane gas produced by livestock, they show a video clip of cattle, generally at pasture. Video footage of a nasty and cattle-crowded feedlot is apparently not their first choice to demonstrate those awful gas producing bovines that are a key culprit in global warming.

How exactly have we reached such a place, such a mode of thinking, in regard to the once highly revered bovine? Certainly their fall from grace in the eyes of liberal Global Warming freaks is vast and immeasurable. I offer you the following words of George-Louis Leclerc, de Buffon, from William Smellie's 1781 English translation, in regard to cattle, or to "The Ox", as they were commonly referred for thousands of years:

But these are not the only advantages which man derives from the ox. Without the aid of this useful animal, both the poor and the opulent would find great difficulty in procuring subsistence; the earth would remain uncultivated; our fields and gardens would become parched and barren. All the labour of the country depends upon him. He is the most advantageous domestic of the farmer. He is the very source and support of agriculture. Formerly the ox constituted the whole riches of mankind; and he is still the basis of the riches of nations, which subsist and flourish in proportion only to the cultivation of their lands and the number of their cattle: For in these all real wealth consists; every other kind, even gold and silver, being only fictitious representations, have no value, but what is conferred on them by the productions of the earth.

This movement to denigrate the awesome cow for the sake of Global Warming may very well lead to cattle ranchers, along with the real polluters, having to pay a federal penalty, or federal tax, to compensate this horrible smelly damage their occupation is causing to our environment. Once that happens, many, if not most, small ranchers will have to close their ranch gates and find some other livestock that farts "good gas" I suppose. What happens then to the price of beef? Basic economics. There will be less beef on the shelf at the supermarket, and that beef will be priced much higher. Shall we all become vegetarians now, and pooh pooh the hard won evolution of society to one which affords the poor and rich alike the pleasure and sustenance of meat? Let's hear what Buffon had to say in regard to meat for the poor........

Of those animals which man forms into flocks, and whose multiplication is his principal object, the females are more useful than the males. The produce of the cow is almost perpetually renewed. The flesh of the calf is equally wholesome and delicate; the milk is an excellent food, especially for children; butter is used in most of our dishes; and cheese is the principal nourishment of our peasants. How many poor families are reduced to the necessity of living entirely on their cow? Those very men, who toil from morning to night, who groan and are bowed down with the labour of ploughing the ground, obtain nothing from the earth but black bread, and are obliged to yield to others the flour and substantial part of the grain. They raise rich crops, but not for themselves. Those men who breed and multiply our cattle, who spend their whole lives in rearing and guarding them from injuries, are debarred from enjoying the fruits of their labour. They are denied the use of flesh, and obliged, by their condition, or rather by the cruelty of the opulent, to live, like horses, upon barley, oats, coarse pot-herbs, &c.

Even today, there are many small cattle ranchers that do not eat the beef they raise because they need the proceeds from selling their livestock. They eat cheaper meat, and less meat than perhaps they would prefer -- a modern version of what Buffon describes in the late 1700's. The rising costs of inputs over the past few years (mostly due to that corn ethanol boon-doggle)to raise cattle and to keep pastures fertile has strapped the small beef producer. Oftentimes they can only just break-even for all their efforts to provide beef to the USA, and too many actually lose money at this endeavor. Something is quite morally wrong about that.

Something is also quite morally wrong about targeting cows as key villains in this so-called Global Warming crisis. The extreme left wing liberals, like Paul McCartney, would have you believe they are looking out for the working class, the little people -- nothing could be farther from the truth. The long term ramifications of implementing their pie in the sky philosophies and beliefs may well lead to another era of poor diets for the poor such as Buffon so succinctly described as existing over 200 years ago and beyond. Of course, the really poorest of the poor will get more and more food stamps I imagine, and they can buy whatever they want at the supermarket -- but the hard working poor will not.